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Utilities

This directory contains utility scripts for the SciCat Governance repository.

create_single_document.bash

A script that combines all governance markdown documents into a single markdown file and PDF document.

Description

The script: 1. Creates a cover page with title, author, and current date 2. Combines all markdown files listed in manifest.txt (in order) 3. Removes license footers from each file 4. Generates a single markdown file with all content 5. Converts the combined markdown to a PDF using pandoc 6. Fixes internal markdown links to work in the combined document 7. Cleans up temporary files

Dependencies

  • pandoc - For converting markdown to PDF
  • xelatex - PDF engine used by pandoc (part of TeX Live)

On Ubuntu/Debian: 

sudo apt-get install pandoc texlive-xetex

Usage

Run from the utils directory:

cd utils
bash create_single_document.bash

Or from the repository root:

bash utils/create_single_document.bash

Note: When running from the repository root, ensure the script can find manifest.txt in the utils directory.

Output

The script generates two timestamped files in the utils directory:

  • scicat_governance_full_YYYYmmddHHMMSS.md - Combined markdown document
  • scicat_governance_full_YYYYmmddHHMMSS.pdf - PDF version of the document

Where YYYYmmddHHMMSS is the current timestamp (e.g., 20260603143022).

Files

  • create_single_document.bash - The main script
  • manifest.txt - List of markdown files to combine (in order), with paths relative to the repository root